Half Sorry
by TheLittleCat
Summary: She could smell winter coming even though it was April....GSR


_TITLE: Half Sorry_

_AUTHOR: dthelittlecat_

_Rating: K_

_Pairing: GSR_

_First time poster (for this fandom) long time lurker._

_I do not own CSI. Lyrics (in italics) are fromEmm Gryner'ssong Half Sorry.No copyright infringement is intended. Also, if someone who is a prostar in the LJ community could e-mail me a crash course in posting to geekfiction for a confused lady, I would love you forever..._

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_Thank God I've got three minutes to tell you what I did today  
I left this ugly city, with a computer and your cabaret  
And I am happy for you, as happy as I can be burning alive  
Is Paris as green as you say that it is  
You can fill me in sometime……….._

The smell of winter coming always reminded her of the smell of blood on linoleum. The sharp, metallic tang invading her sinuses. She knew that scent at eight years old, when her mother decided it was time for things to stop, and the scent will not wash off. She's tried every soap on the market.

She had always figured that she would be the first to go. When he announced he was taking a leave of absence, her jaw hit the floor, and the rest of her body followed soon after, alone in a locked stall in the ladies room. The boxes were stacked, walls bare, as she leaned against the doorframe for the last time.

"You never told us where you are going."

He turned, eyes blue and ice and there's that smell again. He opens his mouth, closes it. Takes a deep breath.

"Do you really want to know?"

She's pissed off now. "Fine. I'll see you around." She leaves the doorway to his office for the last time. He goes to the door and places his palm against the wood, feeling the last remnants of her warmth leave where her body had been pressed.

_This is me without you, standing in the air I breathe  
And I am half sorry that I came around for you……  
_  
As far as she knew, Catherine drove him to the airport. When she returned to the lab, she found Sara hunched over a microscope, picking apart fibers found at the scene of a robbery.

"He said to tell you goodbye."

"That's nice. But you told me goodbye, not him."

She can't spend as much time at the lab the way it is, the night shift adjusts well to Catherine's supervision but Sara can't shake the feeling that they are a little like a ship without a captain. Or maybe it's just her.

She hears Greg laugh for the fist time in three weeks, and when Nick and Warrick's laughter echoes him, she knows for sure.

She joins them after shift, bars, clubs, she's never been a party girl but she's never been a lot of things. So she dances with strangers and dances with the guys who are like her family and no matter who touches her she can never stop thinking what if.

_And I'm slowly getting there, the place between love and I don't care  
You should have seen me on tuesday night  
I will fill you in sometime………._

The first letter comes two months later. Enough time, she imagines, for him to think she won't try and talk him back home. Enough time, he imagines, for her not to succeed. She recognizes his handwriting, despite the only sample in her possession being in the form of a yellowing card from a local florist. The stamp is monochrome, and is European. He knows that by the time she gets the letter he won't be near where he wrote it.

He does not know that she throws it away without reading it. It almost works out for her too, until she awakens in the middle of the day and digs through her trash can, old coffee grounds and half-eaten yogurt containers flying around her kitchen as she digs it out of the garbage. Her address is smudged, the letter soaked through with old coffee, falling apart as she unfolds it. She catches an apology, and then sees the three words that send her to the airport, standing in the terminal before she comes to her senses, gets in her car and drives home.

_I miss you but you don't care anymore……….  
_  
"The scene of a drive by is no place for a lady." Sara rolls her eyes at the rookie cop's idea of a line.

Catherine is quick as a whip. "If we see one, we'll be sure to let her know."

Catherine has been her saving grace, the women having come to a silent agreement to put aside their differences as so much of them is the same. Two bright women really are better than one, and Sara is listening to Catherine talk of Lindsay when she sees the car with no headlights turn the corner.

The crack from the first shot hasn't rung out before Sara is between Catherine and the car. She hits the ground, watching her colleague's lips moving but can't hear anything beyond the rushing in her own ears, and she can smell winter coming even though it is April.

_And I am happy for you, as happy as I can be burning alive…._

When she wakes up later, Catherine is beside her, unable to speak because what do you day to the broken body that should have been yours?

"How do you feel?"

"Like I've been shot."

Sara smirks. Catherine loses what remains of her composture, and reaches out to brush the stray hairs out of her friend's eyes.

"How long have I been here?"

"Two days. It was minor, grazed off your shoulder blade. You've been pretty doped up though."

"No kidding. When can I leave?"

"The doctors said a few more days, just to make sure."

"This is going to suck."

Catherine laughs at that, then stops. "I called him."

Sara leans against the pillows, closing her eyes. She doesn't ask how Catherine knew where to call.

"Sara….."

"Don't say anything."

Catherine's tired eyes snap to hers. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"There's a little girl who loves you very much, and a mother who needs her daughter."

"I don't know how to….."

"Then don't. I mean it. I was lucky and I'm grateful, but when it comes right down to it, you are everything to Lindsay. You are needed." There was no self pity, no blame in Sara's voice. It was fact to her, and she presented it like evidence. "There is no one to who I am everything."

They had not heard the door of her room open, so they did not expect the hoarse, travel weary voice that replied steadily to her last comment.

"Yes, there is."

_I listened to your point of view, while mine went up in smoke  
So go where their skin's the same shade as mine  
And remember me, I hope you will…………..  
_

Catherine had to figure out which two options the situation called for more: being invisible or moving quickly. She tried both, and ended up overturning the orange plastic chair she had been sitting on when her purse caught on the leg. It was then she discovered option three: comic relief.

Grissom took four cautious steps into the room and helped Catherine untangle herself from the offensive furniture, fighting a smirk and his shaking hands. Once freed, Catherine left the room in a manner that finally made Sara understand the phrase 'as if the Devil himself was in pursuit.' She had several demons vying for her attention at the moment.

She couldn't run, she had all these tubes and where could she possibly run that she couldn't feel that gaze on her? He just stared. The clock on the wall separated the time into easy, measurable pieces and she began to tap her finger to the ticks unconsciously.

She lifted her finger to dispose of the next second, but before she could touch the sheet again he had her in his arms. Shaking. She thought it was him but really couldn't be sure. She knew it her crying.

He pulled back and looked at her.

"Hi."

"I'm sorry." And he was. For everything. Truly. For the betrayal, the mess, the anger, the hurt, the fear, the not quite getting it, the end-of-the-world-if-I-love-her train wreck his life had been up until then. It was nothing short of a miracle to his mind that he could accept the blame for his excuses, that he could recognize them as excuses. He knew she would never forgive him. One miracle was all he got.

"So am I. I never wrote you back."

"That's okay."

"I went to the airport."

"When?"

"After your letter. I went to the airport, and then realized I didn't know where to go. So I went home."

She began to cry, and laugh, and ended up taking huge hiccuppy breaths while Grissom tried to get her to drink some of the water on her bedstand. "Thanks."

She looked over the rim of the cup at him, and smiled when he pulled it away.

And he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could get a second miracle.

_Thank God I've got three minutes to tell you what I did today…….._


End file.
